You do love this title, don't You? Usually written by some dumb kids or hipsters after the release of a new Fun single. It all comes to our own taste and preference which song is the best or not. I don't really believe in God, so I don't believe that there exists an ultimately best song ever. Maybe there was a song in like 1530 or there will be in the future (OR MAYBE ALIENS HAVE IT, YOU NEVER KNOW). So, what am I on about here? I picked my best song in Folk Metal, Power Metal and Melodic Death Metal. So without further bullshit-here wo go.
Probably the hardest choice of all to pick the best Power Metal song, but Stratovarius won with the most epic piece I ever listened to. Not a single second on this track seems unfitting to my ear. 3 part monster delivers probably the most amazing solos on keys I heard and every solo fits the rest of the song. Guitar outro makes my soul burn with an eternal fire and both vocals and drums are on the spot.
Close but outmatched were Galneryus with Angel of Salvation and Pathfinder with Ready to Die Between The Stars, they deserve a mention at least.
Yes, a Moonsorrow song. Not one of my favourite bands, but kept in a high regard. Why Jotunheim?
Well, it perfectly captures the spirit of folk metal, the primal form of it. The first, black metal mixed with folk elements. The folk and sad intro, the screams, the melody. There wasn't a single listening of it that didn't squeeze a single tear from my right eye.
The closest to Moonsorrow was Nordheim with Soulblood, nice work for a band outside of Europe :)
And I guess no surprise here, best melodic death metal song is Sons of Winter and Stars + the intro track, When Time Fades Away. I don't even remember how many tracks were in this song, arround 1600. Some would say that there isn't much melodic death metal here, but for these people I have one thing to say:
fuck you.
fuck you all!
Wintersun is the best *crazy fanboy laughter* HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!
*escapes through closed window*
"Review I should have made years ago but I'm a lazy fuck" part one.
Today's treat is Titanium self titled album "Titanium". I will focus on stuff I dislike more than on the one I like because I'm an asshole and an ungrateful bastard.
Titanium is a band from the worst country in the world- Poland. Thank god they don't sing in Polish because every foreigner would have his ears cut off. Seriously, just read those random lyrics
"Szczamy szczawiem szybko, szczuj psami nas
Sramy grzybów mrowiem, spierdalamy w las"
have fun trying to read that.
Back to the album. First thing to notice is that they lack creativity to even name the album in an original manner. Seriously? Don't even tell me that they also have a track called Titanium...
Oh crap. They do. Lazy ass wankers.
notice the banana.
They play melodic metal, because they are hipsters and calling this power metal would be too mainstream, you know. But this power metal isn't as fast as you would expect so for me it sounds like a little bit heavier music used in intros to some child cartoons. Don't know why really, the intro to the lazy named Titanium track always sounded to me like this.
People responsible for this cd are listed below, polish names are hard to translate but fuck it, I'll do it anyway
Guitar: Carol Crazy (?)
Bass: Simon Stitching Awlower (?)
Guitar: Jaroslav Bona
Drums: Philip Pear Tree (?)
Vocals: Matthias "Rocker" Sparrower (?)
Ex bassist on the album was Pavel "Bubble" Facey (?) but since bass line is almost impossible to hear on the album it doesn't matter, does it? Simon is here for the japanese bonus track, Full Moon (Sonata Arctica cover) because clearly japanese people won't buy anything without something more that they already know. And I swear to god- Simon is playing bass there, he even put somewhere his bass line for people to hear. It's nice of him because I can't hear any bass on the track.
Did I mention I never hear bass in songs? Well, that may explain a bit, poor Jimmy Bain from Dio, I never heard him play :P
If you can see the asshole in a background then your eyesight is perfect
Anyway, track number one is "We come to rock". Also the only line of the lyrics we can hear clearly. Not only the vocals are high but Sparrow can scream even higher. I wonder how his balls are doing. When it comes to instruments we have amazing guitars and some wild animal on the drums. Wait, did I hear a bass line for a second? No.. Nevermind. On the second track "Dogmatic Mind" I eithier hear a bass in the beginning or someone is burping. Since this album was made by one of the guitarists it's overpacked with guitar solos. Well, we couldn't expect him to behave like Jani Liimatainen who put only a few well fitting solos on his own album.
After two tracks we can hear Far Beyond The Skies which contains some lines from Doctor Who. It would be an awesome intro for an album. Instead it's an intro to Another Chance, which from the lyrics (still have problems understanding from the vocals) is a tribute song to Doctor Who. I hope we can hear about ninja turtles next. Sadly, the next one is The Only One , for a split second I hoped for a song about Lord of The Rings but disappointed again. From what I heard it's a love song about a stalker dreaming of a girl.
Or a dude.
Since it's power metal I bet it was about a dude.
Now I'm afraid to even look on other songs. Sacred Dreams, Here and Now, Forever Mine, An Ever Flowing Stream, Nowhere To Run, In The Night? Why do all those song titles sound so sexually offensive?
Sacred Dreams is thankfully a song where I can't find anything to complain about, a typical hit song, well placed on an album. Actually would be a pretty good album name as well.
Here and Now thankfully isn't about lust and fast sex, more like a song you would play at 3 am under your ex house. Rocker sounds really angry here, he amazes me with his angry barking vocals which are even harder to understand than his normal high singing . I don't even wanna know how angry was the drummer before recording this as I bet his drumkit had to be replaced twice during the recording of this one song.
Forever mine is another love song and again sexuality of the subject is a mystery. One could say that it's open for both sexes to sing but remember- it's power metal.
An Ever Flowing Stream is an instrumental track, and thank god for that. I don't want to know of what is this stream made..
Nowhere to Run is next, and what can I say. This is simply a track you buy this album for. It's an album review so I can't bitch about how those fuckers refuse to play this song live. Also how they waste potential of saying/writing on posters "Coming to your town again!" before a tour in a city they've been to.
In the night is starting with a guitar solo, in the middle there is another one and near the end we can hear the third one. But which guitarist gets to play two solos? Well, to be fair they took a guitarist from outside the band, Gunsen, a shining star in metal music, totally one of the best solo musicians and favourite guitarists out there, with a mascular body to further impress his audience, sadly we can't see in a song. I'm surprised how can they fit anything besides said solos.
Titanium song is number 12, and over 7 minutes long. Yea, because after 11 songs I really wanna hear another one. Think of reviewers sometimes, ok? Oh, I get it. It's a masturbation song. You can simply replace lyrics with "We are Titanium, we are awesome" in loop. In the end they add some Van Canto-ish vocal stuff. And some lines from a movie, I don't know which because I'm an idiot. Probably Ninja Turtles.
Riffs of Steel is an instrumental song which starts very loud and I would hate to hear it without setting an audio earlier lower. Song is simply a long guitar solo, because clearly 3 solos in one song + solo or two in over 10 tracks on a single album are not enough for guitarists to show their skills. Fap all you want, next is thankfully the last song on this album
Curse of the White Flag.
It starts with a phone call in Polish. Have fun understanding. It's actually a funny song when I read, not heard, the lyrics. But it's not a Japan bonus track, so they are just a bunch of liars.
I won't even comment the "bonus track" which is arround 3 minutes of someone snoring outside.
The japanese bonus track is a cover of Sonata Arctica's Fullmoon. Which is like the best track in the world. Amazing drums, powerful vocals, high tempo, catchy chorus and mind shattering guitars. Original? Hell no, I meant the cover. Because no matter how much of an asshole I was writing this review Titanium is the best power metal band I know and my favourite of favoutites, kicking Sonata Arctica in the ass both with this cover and from nr 1 of my favourite bands. Carol is playing solo (originally played on keyboards and guitars at once) only on guitar, and trust me- it's better than with 2 different instruments. Philip is fixing his home pipes by smashing them to pieces and Matthew is singing very high but keeping a steel-hard level (or should I say titanium hard?).
Originally I wrote a small review back in 2013, it scored 94% back then. But now I have to add something for a SA cover song. So 97,5% won't hurt.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that one day I will become a mascot of this band, just like Primoz is :P
PS: The world is a cruel place. In 2012 formed a pop shit group called Titanium in New Zealand, which has almost 30* more fans than the true Titanium. They dare to call themselves "talented" and they don't even have normal names. The fuck's a Haydn. I guess his parents hated him
Well, the first thing that we can hear is that Primal Platypus Alley growls and screams a lot, not the best beginning for a Power Metal song but it's almost 9 minutes, give him a try for fucks sake.
And man he screams a lot. When it comes to pure vocal power this song is totally better than an original, no doubt. But is it always only about the power? Its worth mentioning that mixing in the original has vocals moved a little back in comparison to the new version.
In the original Pudel is telling a story, sometimes more talking than singing, his english isn't really clear, actually sounds like me trying to sing anything. Any harsher screams are moved to the background, it's more like a bow towards metal. Both versions have a little bit worse beginning when talking about vocals. Pudel also sounds a little bit more desperate, it's hard to tell why. Well, it isn't hard, I'm just an idiot :P
New version is less than a story, more like a powerful explosion of emotion, especially the ending is sung a little different, which is a great addition to this powerful song. Here I have to say some good things about the new version- while few people told me that Platypus isn't sounding like a "typical power metal singer" we have to look at Fifth Element track for a second- is it a typical power metal song? No, and it's quite far from it, musical background is so rich and intense that I would say it's very close to melodic death metal territory, so Platypus vocals are more suitable than Poodle's.
When it comes to English language of both vocalists I must say that Primal Alley is making a better job, his knowing of spelling and accent isn't better than Simon's (both are not very good) but he is way clearer and easier to understand. With Poodle during tracks like Elemental Power I need to have lyrics in front of my eyes to understand something. Well, maybe my hearing is shitty too :P
Overall I have to say that Fifth Element isn't my favourite Pathfinder song, not even close. It's hard for me to judge which vocalist does a better job here. While I justified some of Primal's growls it's still not very fitting for my taste, he sounds sometimes that he's "trying too hard". On the other side we have Simon who sounds more like talking than singing to me and I can't understand what he's saying. But this song with Primal is here just to make an entry, an impact. To show the world that Pathfinder is very much alive and ready to blast us with album number three. And energy on this track perfectly delivers that. The "Fly" scream is sung with so much emotion I shat my bed when I heard it for the first time. So this comparision is totally meaningless, I give the old version a score 7/banana and the new is pear/banana. This track review is so terrible that I probably won't do stuff like this ever again, I fucking suck.
PS. Not really a versus between the two of them, I saw Primal live and he was so much better than any live recording of Simon I found. Thanks for reading and sorry for shitty quality.
